The present invention relates to a photographing apparatus and method for dynamic range adjustment and stereography.
In scenes captured by a photographing apparatus such as a digital still camera or a video camera, there may be a wide brightness ratio between the brightest portion and the darkest portion of a subject. This ratio of brightest to darkest is also called the dynamic range of the image.
When photographing of the subject is performed using a photographing apparatus having a narrow allowable dynamic range, the subject may not be photographed well. At this time, since the photographing apparatus is not in an appropriate exposure state, the captured image may include dark or bright smeared portions.
When the subject is photographed by a photographing apparatus having a narrow allowable dynamic range, the dynamic range may be enlarged using the following operations. For example, the dynamic range may be enlarged by (1) non-linear treatment such as gamma or knee operation, (2) using a non-linear photographing apparatus, (3) combining images obtained from imaging devices having properties different from each other, or (4) image signal processing or combining images obtained from one imaging device.
However, since the dynamic range of original image data input into the photographing apparatus is narrow, there is a limitation in enlarging the dynamic range using the operations (1) through (4) mentioned above.
In addition, according to a conventional method of enlarging a dynamic range by combining a plurality of images, exposures of which are different from each other, images captured at different times from each other may be combined. Thus, it is difficult to combine images obtained by photographing a moving subject or captured during a hand-shake to produce an image having high image quality. In addition, in the above case, each of the images may be captured after changing exposure, and thus, brightness of an electronic view finder (EVF) or a liquid crystal display (LCD) in the live view display may be repeatedly changed between dark and bright states, or continuity of displaying the subject in the live view display may not be ensured.